


I feel your pain

by Amrais



Category: Good Witch (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, References to Depression, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:40:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25241788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amrais/pseuds/Amrais
Summary: What if Nick’s a little more troubled when he comes to Middleton and Sam doesn’t realize, that it takes more than a relocation to help his son? It needs Graces intuition to understand how much Nick is hurting and to help him to patch things up again...
Relationships: Cassie Nightingale/Sam Radford, Nick Radford/Grace Russell
Comments: 13
Kudos: 21





	1. It’s too quiet

**Author's Note:**

> Trust me to take a perfectly sweet series and turn it in something hurtful... you see I’m stressed and dealing by projecting on fictional Charakters. I noticed, that there are very few fics for this series out there, I hope you’ll give it a chance anyways and let me know how you liked it...  
> I’m not a native speaker, so let me know if here are grammar and spelling mistakes. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoy!!

Nick lay on his bed and starred at the ceiling of his new room. He missed home. Admittedly his new room was nicer than his old one. Bigger, with a hardwood floor and huge windows looking out into the woods behind the house. But still, it wasn’t the same. The quietness of this town drove him crazy. New York was always so loud and busy. The nervous buzz of the city always had calmed his nerves, but here? He could hear himself think and that was never a pleasant thing.  
“Nick?” His father called and he sighed. It was dinner time already and since moving here, his father insisted on spending it together. He rather would be chewing on his own arm, than to suffer through these awful dinners with his Dad, but there was no way of getting out of them. Where would he go anyways? He had no friends, nowhere to be around here. He only had met his new neighbor the other day, but she was way too goody two shoes for him to like her. Dressed nicely, with shining brown hair, brown puppy dog eyes and a welcoming smile. He had made sure to be cold enough to make this smile fade quickly.  
Dinner was tense, as always since that day. His father tried to make awkward conversation, but he gave up after he was met with Nicks stubborn silence.  
“Sooo…”, Sam started again. “School starts tomorrow.”  
Nick shrugged his shoulders.  
“I’m sure it will be ok. A new start, right?” his father mused.  
“Right”, Nick tried to sound as sarcastic as possible. Nothing ever would be like it had been before and he still couldn’t decide, if this was a good or a bad thing.  
“Nick, I’m so glad, you are here with me”, his Dad said, using his soft voice, that made Nick always torn between grossed out and so damn emotional. He rolled his eyes, making sure his father could see him doing so and walked out of the kitchen, back into his room. He let himself fall on his bed, taking his previous position again. He scrolled to his Instagram, looking at the new photos his friends had posted recently. Friends; he almost snorted at that thought. Not one of them had called him, since all of this had happened. It was like he had never existed. Not a word. No call, no message, no like on one of his posts. He still missed them.  
He could feel the pressure of tears behind his eyes, threatening to spill that treacherous salty liquid. He let go of his phone and brought the hand up to his mouth, biting into the meaty place under his thumb. He only let go, when it hurt so bad, he was sure the tears were because of the pain he caused himself and not because of the hurt and loneliness he felt, thinking about his friends. He wiped the saliva away with his t-shirt. It had to be washed anyways and looked at the damage he had done. The teethmarks stood out whitely, but became slightly purple, as the blood started flowing again. It looked grusome and he quickly hid his dully acing Hand under his covers. How could he be so stupid? He hadn’t broken his skin, but just used enough force to give himself a bruise in the odd half moon shape of a bite. If that wasn’t gone till tomorrow, he would have to think about something to cover this up. He didn’t want people to talk behind his back and he certainly didn’t wanted his father to see.  
Nick decided to go to bed. There was nothing he could do in his room, apart from watching a film on his laptop, but he did not feel like it. He felt more like shooting up aliens on his PlayStation, but that was in the living room, hooked to the big Tv and no way in hell would he now go out there and risk his father see the blooming bruise on his hand, he had enough to deal with as it was. After he had crept into the bathroom, brushing his teeth with his left hand, hiding his right, he crawled up under the covers in his bed. Leaving the lamp on his desk burning, because it simply was too dark out here. You could even see the stars and even if he secretly liked that, he could not seep in this darkness, he simply wasn’t used to it. The problem of the quietness he took care of with an folder on his laptop that was filled with lots of old comedy series. He turned the volume down, so it was only a low hum of voices, that would help him not to feel so utterly alone, as he tried to fall asleep. 

Looking at his hand the next morning, he was relived to see, that it almost had its normal color back and wasn’t swollen anymore. Nobody would notice the slight discoloration, but he could still feel a bit of pain, if he pressed the other thumb down on it. Good; that would help him to get through the day.  
“Do you want me to drive you?” His father asked, after he had finished his cereal and put the bowl in the sink.  
Nick shook his head.  
“I’ll walk”, he said simply, deliberately trying to hurt his father with his refusal. He would spend as little time with him as possible. He hadn’t cared about him for years, always busy with work, why would he let him make up for it now, just because he felt guilty? No, he would show him, that he could do it by himself. He needed no one. Not anymore! 

Leaving the house in a rush, he bumped into his next door neighbor. Quite literally. Eyes glued to his phone he just walked into her, making her trip and dropping her school folder, she had been carrying in her arms.  
“Ouch, watch were you going”, she snapped at him angrily.  
He bent down to pick up her folder, but he didn’t even think about apologizing.  
“Maybe keep your eyes open next time”, he came back at her, shoving her items back into her arms. He already wanted to push past her, but she held him back.  
“Hey, are you alright?” She asked, her warm, chocolate brown eyes expressed concern.  
The first second he was surprised about her question, but when he felt the tingle of thankfulness that somebody had asked him that, he chose to erase the feeling by getting angry. He needed no one, he was going to get trough this alone.  
“Why don’t you mind your own business?” He lashed out at her.  
“I…I just felt like you are hurt”, she said confused, not really understanding where the feeling of immense pain came from.  
He started, immediately thinking about that pale bite mark on his hand, the coldness in his body, the emptiness in his mind.  
“Leave me alone”, he yelled and nearly ran from her, leaving a very confused and worried Grace behind.


	2. Cinnamon

It was exhausting, navigating his ways around Grace and her friend Anthony and simultaneously nod along to the mindless chatter of his classmates. 

Back at home he decided to tackle his maths homework straight away. He hadn’t understood one word his teacher had said to them during the lesson. To be completely honest, he never invested a lot of time in school, when he was still in New York. He and his friends had spend much more time smoking weed behind the dumpsters and bunking off to spend the day making the city their playground. But he had promised his Mom, that he would try this time.  
So for two hours he starred down on his books and notes, trying to wrap his head around this cryptic sings in front of him. He stopped when he felt like he wanted to pound his head into the wall. He knew enough about mental health, to know this feeling probably wasn’t too healthy. He rubbed his eyes until they burned. He felt like a loser, like the useless, lazy idiot his father always thought he was. Not really sure on what he should do with himself, he opened the fridge, closed it, opened it again. Then he decided for a packed of crisps for lunch and to blow of some steam on the PlayStation. 

Sam shook his head, when he came home and found his son fast asleep on the couch, the screen showing a game over and the controller tumbled to the floor. One look told him, that Nick wasn’t nowhere almost done with his homework and it made him angry. Nick had promised to put the effort in this time. Until now, it didn’t look like it was going to happen.  
A little bit more roughly than needed, he shook Nick awake.  
“I see you have a lot of unfinished homework left. I thought we agreed, that you would do your homework first, before you would do anything else”, he scolded him.  
Nick yawned, “I know, I was just so tiered.” He said.  
“Well then, I guess we will have to look at this after dinner, won’t we?”  
“I can do that by myself. It’s not like you took the time to help me with my homework in New York.”  
“And we saw how that turned out”, Sam mumbled.  
Angry, Nick got up from the couch and went to put on his shoes.  
“Where are you going?” Sam wanted to know.  
“Out!” Nick said curtly and slammed the door behind him, before his father could call him back. He had forgotten to put on his jacked and the outside air was so freezing, that he regretted leaving like that in seconds. But he couldn’t go in there just now. He had his pride too. So he sat down on the low stone wall in the shadow of the big tree and huddled up, hoping he could keep himself warm for a bit. Just as long, as he needed to clear his mind from all these screaming thoughts. 

“Grace?” Cassie pokes her head into the sitting room, where her daughter was curled up with a book by the fire.  
“Yes, Mom?”  
“Could you do me a favor? I baked too many cupcakes, could you bring a few over to our new neighbors? I think they would enjoy them. Wasn’t it Nicks first day at school today?”  
Grace rolled her eyes at the mentioning of his Name, but nevertheless closed her book and got up.  
“Sure”, she said.  
She pulled on her jacket, because even though the way over was short and she did not plan on staying too long, it was really cold outside. Cassie handed her the plate with the cupcakes. They were still warm and smelled delicious  
“Thanks honey”, she said with a smile. 

“Hey”, suddenly said a soft voice and Nick almost jumped. Too lost in thoughts he hadn’t heard her coming, but there she stood in front of him, holding a plate with cupcakes that obviously were still warm.  
“Are you alright? What are you doing out here?” She asked, handing him the plate, so she could sit down next to him.  
“Yeah, I needed to think”, he explained.  
“And you couldn’t do that inside, where it is warm?” She surely had noticed how much he was shivering.  
“My Dad’s Inside”, he said, like that would explain his strange behavior. But she said nothing to that.  
“What were you thinking about?” She asked instead.  
“New York. My Mum…”  
“Do you miss her?” And even if he wasn’t in the mood for talking, he nodded. She sighed.  
“I miss my Dad too.”  
“Where is he? Are you parents divorced too?” He asked her.  
“No, he died.”  
“Oh, Im sorry!” Now he felt bad for whining about his Mom, when Grace never got to see her Dad again.  
“Oh no, that’s alright”, she said softly and took his hand.  
“It’s still ok to miss your Mom!”  
Her hand touched the sore spot on his hand and he quickly pulled it back, in some illogical fear, that she could feel the injury too.  
“Why don’t you try one of these cupcakes? They have cinnamon in them, that’s my favorite spice, it always helps me to relax…”  
She was so sweet and friendly, that he couldn’t stand it any longer. He did not deserve that. He was so messed up and bad, that he didn’t want to taint her pureness with his presence.  
“I need to go inside, I still got math to do”, he said rather gruffly and stood up. For a moment Grace seemed confused, but then smiled again.  
“If you need any help with that… well, you know where I live”, she offered him and Nick swore to himself, that he would not take her up on that offer. He had to do it by himself, he didn’t deserve so much kindness. 

Weirdly enough, he thought he could still smell that cinnamon, when he went to bed that night. And even more weird, he really felt slightly relaxed by it...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so maybe this is really boring, but I really like simple story’s with a lot of hurt/comfort, so maybe someone else likes them too. Let me know if that someone is you :)


	3. Lessons in growing up

“I’m what?” he challenged her, he wanted her to say it, all the horrible things he was thinking about himself, out loud. Said by the girl that was an practically an angel. Grace stood before him fuming, angry and disappointed that he had dropped her in it and apparently would let her take the blame for his wrongdoings willingly.  
She nearly seemed lost for words. Finally she said: “You know what you are. And now I do too!” And than she left, let him to fill all the blanks she had just left open so generously. Graces disappointed face followed him to his room, even though he tried to shake it, telling himself that he did not care what she thought about him. He only stole that damn eagle to feel the rush again. Live around here didn’t have any thrill to take his mind off and more often than not he found himself reeling and his mind spinning. In New York he would have meet up with some friends and taken his mind off by partying hard or they would have done a little heart rate raising challenge. Mostly that had helped to get him out of his head. But now all he had was this all consuming nervousness, this urge he did not, under no circumstances wanted to give in and chocolate brown eyes that looked at him accusingly. It went to his core, it was the first time, that he felt bad for stealing and it was the first time, if he liked it or not, he cared about the person he dropped in it. It didn’t feel good. Walking up and down his room he felt like a caged animal. He only noticed that he had hit the wall already two times when the pain crept up his knuckles and spread up to his elbow. The dull pain made his head spin. He knew immediately that this was wrong, but it just felt so right. He deserved that pain, for what he was doing to Grace, for all the bad thoughts he couldn’t get out of his system otherwise. He needed more. More pain. A bruise to look at, a reminder how messed up he was and the mistakes he made. But he was clear enough not to bruise his knuckles further. Nobody would believe him, that he did this one playing basketball if the skin was scraped open and the space around this knuckles was too swollen and discolored. Hounded he looked around the room for something he could use. There was a trophy with a heavy wooden base on his windowsill. He pulled it down on the floor with him and sat down with his back to the wall. He tried to take a deep breath, to change his mind, he counted to ten, but still he longed for that act of violence that would free him from this tension, only just for a while. He lifted the metal cup. 

He didn’t know how long he had been laying on the floor, curled into a thought ball, but when he finally got up and looked on his phone, he saw, that he had to hurry up, if he wanted to make it to the principals offices, before Graces deadline run out. He quickly changed his sweaty, wrinkly clothes, only shortly looking at the bluish red bruise the cup had left on his right thigh. It hurt like a bitch, but that was what he wanted, wasn’t it? In a hurry he splashed some cold water on his face, to get rid of the tracks the tears that had come involuntarily had left. Then he pulled on his shoes and ran all the way to the school. The ache of his leg a constant reminder, that he couldn’t back out no more. He was a fuck up that deserved to be punished, not Grace. Sweet, innocent, annoying Grace. 

He pressed his thumb into his leg before knocking on the principals office door. Grace was already there and she and the principal stared at him when he entered. He could see on her face, that she was relieved but still angry and the man behind the desk looked like he knew all along.  
“This makes more sense”, he said and despite it being true it hurts Nick nonetheless.  
For a second, when she walked past him, he could feel Graces Hand on his shoulder. Her warmth, the faint smell of cinnamon, her chocolate eyes. For a moment he felt strong. He could do this. He wasn’t a coward, but he knew the bruises on his hand and leg told a different story. 

“Go ahead, start yelling”, he told his father when that night they sat awkwardly across from each other in the bistro.  
“I’m not going to yell, what’s the point?” Sam said tiredly.”you’re on some self destructive kick at the moment and I… even don’t know what to say…”  
It was really fucking painful to hear these words. His father had no clue just how self destructive Nick really was and already he was giving up on him. Nick wanted to push his abused hand in front of his face, just to show him how badly he was broken and wanted to be fixed, but instead he shamefully hid his injured hand under his other and pressed his leg upward into the tabletop to make it hurt, so the words couldn’t sing as much anymore. Nobody could hurt him as badly as he hurt himself. This was all the power he had left. He didn’t look up until his father said:  
“Except…I was wrong.”  
It did not happen every day, that his dad admitted to being wrong.  
“The way I’ve moved us here. Without warning, get in the car… it wasn’t fair to you. And now you’re angry and you acting out. But hear me: we’re staying! And you could either accept it or you can keep doing what you’re doing and risk messing up the rest of your life.”  
He all said it, like it wasn’t a big deal. Moving here that way had not been unfair, it had been downright traumatic and Nick had felt like he was loosing his whole life for the second time in a year. Now his mother was gone and suddenly he was dragged here, to the middle of nowhere. But just as he was going to tell how it felt to be treated as a puppet on a string, that was cut, just because it did not do as it was supposed to, the blonde owner of the bistro totted over to flirt with Sam. Nick swallowed the sickening feeling in his stomach. He was on his own. He had been for a long time and he had no other option than to rely on himself. He just had to be better. And even though this realization hurt like it always did when it came to him again, he released the pressure on his bruised leg. He couldn’t hold on to this. He knew it was an unhealthy habit, but what else was he supposed to do, to keep himself from drowning?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even if not many people are reading this, please be so kind and leave feedback. Should I continue or let it drop? 
> 
> Thanks for reading


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